Life

Possible Conradine ancestry

Very little is known of Ota. She was probably born in Velden in 873/4. She is often thought to have been the daughter of Berengar, Count of Hesse and thus a member of the Conradine Dynasty. This view has been questioned by Donald Jackman, who has found no evidence that Ota was a member of the Conradines.

Marriage to Arnulf of Carinthia

In 888, aged about sixteen, Ota married Arnulf of Carinthia, who was king of East Francia. There is no evidence that Ota was crowned. If Ota was a Conradine, then the marriage was intended to win Arnulf support in Bavaria and Lorraine.

For the first few years of their marriage, the couple had no children together. Arnulf thus asked at an imperial assembly held at Forcheim that his two illegitimate sons, Zwentibold and Ratold, born to different mothers, should be recognised as his heirs. Yet in 893 Ota gave birth to Arnulf's legitimate heir, Louis the Child. She was not, as is sometimes conjectured, the mother of Glismut, the wife of Conrad the Elder: Glismut was the mother of Conrad I of Germany, who was born c. 890.